


Forget me not

by Anchestor



Series: He loves me, he loves me not... [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Grillster, Haunting, M/M, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Slice of Life, Supernatural Elements, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 18:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12238134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anchestor/pseuds/Anchestor
Summary: The Barrier broken, monsters are enjoying their new home on the Surface. Grillby and everyone else are happily living their lives.Everyone?Yes. E̸v́ȩ̕ry̨͘͝o҉n͡͏e̵.





	Forget me not

**Author's Note:**

> Twas supposed to be something for grillstember, but alas, I was too slow. Oh well.
> 
> I'm pretty new to this writing thing, so feedback would be appreciated ^^

The sun shone brightly on the forest trail Grillby was walking along, but the fire elemental had an umbrella in his bag just in case. The weather on the Surface brought many wonders, the sunshine not the least of them, but it was a little unpredictable. But that just meant that Grillby had to take precautions, such as the umbrella. He had thought about getting a small and light travel umbrella to keep with him at all times, or maybe a rain cloak that he could fold into his pocket, but he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

He’d been busy enough getting his bar running on the Surface. Apparently humans had a lot of bureaucracy to deal with when starting a business, and that being layered on the bureaucracy that came with being a monster, Grillby had been running himself ragged for a month. But now the bar was open. The first week had been more than successful, as the bar had filled with old regulars returning, new monsters who were craving monster food they hadn’t made themselves, and some humans with curiosity stronger than their reserve.

But now he could afford himself the time to venture exploring his new surroundings, and that included the trail paths of the forest just at the outskirts of the city of Ebott.

The trail forked, and there was a sign pointing to a rest stop. Grillby decided that he had been walking long enough, and turned in the direction of the sign. He soon arrived to a clearing by a lake. There was a large canopy of dark wood, and some picnic tables and benches to match. Grillby sat by one of the tables, took off his hat and dug up a lunch box from his bag. He had brought a cucumber sandwich with him. As he ate, he enjoyed his surroundings. The forest was filled with bright green birches and slightly darker aspens; there was even the odd spruce in there. By the lake the grass turned into pale sand, and rocks of various sizes framed the waterfront. A bed of reeds was the only thing decorating the lake. It was peaceful. Pleasant.

A gust of wind threw Grillby’s hat off the table and tossed it towards the lake. Grillby rushed after his fleeing headwear, but it kept rolling on the ground, pushed by the wind. Thankfully the hat didn’t land in the water, if that had happened Grillby might never have been able to retrieve it, yet it was caught by some rushes instead.

As Grillby carefully kneeled by the water, reaching for his hat, he noticed that his hat hadn’t been stopped just by the rushes. It was in the middle of a patch of little blue flowers, pushing up between the rocks; stems in the water. Grillby took his hat and put it on firmly, then he picked one of the flowers to examine it closer. The sky-blue flowers grew in bunches, and no single flower was bigger then his fingertip. All had five petals and a tiny yellow centre. The leaves were long and thin, a darker shade of green, but not all that dark. All in all, they were very pretty.

On a whim, Grillby picked a handful. He then took a tissue from his pocket, and dipped it in the water. He brought it all to the picnic table, where his lunch box was waiting. He put the flowers in his lunch box, and wrapped the wet tissue around the cut-off stems as well as he could without actually touching it. That should keep them fresh until he could bring them home and put them in water, he thought to himself as he closed his lunchbox and put it in his bag.

As he turned to leave and head back home, he took one last glance at the clearing. It was absolutely quiet: no rustling of trees nor rushes, and the lake was mirror-still.

…Had the trees been that still when the wind had caught his hat?

Grillby shrugged. It wouldn’t have been the first time when he forgot something so obvious.

So he turned back to the trail towards home, an umbrella and a lunch box with little blue flowers in it hidden in his bag.

 

 

_“Look, those five that form a W? That’s Cassiopeia”, said a strange sounding voice as a pale hand pointed towards the heavens._

_He followed where the hand pointed, and easily located the constellation._

_The grassy hill felt cold under him, as he lied on his back, looking up. The stars were beautiful. It was so nice to shed his armour and sword for a moment and pretend that the world didn’t continue beyond the little hill. No war, no humans, no monsters even, just the two of them and their starry night._

_The voice next to his head continued: “In legend, Cassiopeia was a queen who claimed to be more beautiful than the Nereids. This angered the ocean god Poseidon, the father of the Nereids, so he unleashed the sea beast Cetus on the land. The only way to appease the beast was to sacrifice Cassiopeia’s daughter Andromeda -her constellation is that thirteen-star cluster just below Cassiopeia- to the beast.”_

_Grillby frowned. “That doesn’t seem fair.”_

_“I know right?” the voice answered. “Anyway, now we have a beautiful princess chained to a rock by the sea, and a terrible beast approaching. But who should arrive but the hero Perseus! Those fourteen starts left to Andromeda. Armed with a sword and winged sandals given to him by Hermes, and a shield given to him by Athena (they are both gods and not too distant relatives of Perseus, but that’s another story) he slays the beast and rescues Andromeda!”_

_Grillby breathed in the cool night air as the other told the story. The wind carried the first taste of autumn, of a crisp chill and of dead leaves._

_“Did Perseus and Andromeda get married after she was rescued?” Grillby asked. That’s how these stories usually went._

_“Eventually”, he was answered. “Perseus had to deal with his own shenanigans first, but after that, yes.”_

_There was a beat of silence between the two of them. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, not at all._

_“There won’t be much star gazing once we get back to the front, will there?” Grillby said._

_A hand found his own and held it tight. A smooth, hard hand, skilled and elegant, Grillby knew._

_“There’ll be stories though”, the voice said. “You and I will be there. Together. I promise.”_

 

 

When Grillby woke up he didn’t really remember what he had dreamt about. He never did.

Sometimes it felt like he didn’t remember much of anything at all: his past was a scrambled, disjointed blur. He’d fought in the war, that much he knew, and he probably had helped when monsterkind had first been sealed under the mountain. And then he had started his bar.

Maybe he was just too old to remember properly anymore, he thought as he polished a glass behind the bar counter. It had been a slow night.

“hey grillbz.”

Grillby turned to look at Sans, perched on his regular spot. Apparently the skeleton had gotten bored after he had finished his food and several ketchup bottles.

“what’s with the flowers? is someone courting you or something?”

Grillby turned to look at the water glass that now housed a bunch of little blue flowers. He shook his head.

“I found them on a walk.”

“huh. what are these anyway?” Sans asked. He’d pulled the makeshift vase closer for further inspection. Grillby shrugged. Sans pushed the glass back where it had been.

“’could ya hand me another? this one’s empty”, he said, lifting up a ketchup bottle. Grillby shook his head.

“You’ve had enough for one night”, Grillby said. Sans groaned.

“what are you, my dad?”

“You watch your tone, young man!” Grillby said with mock-seriousness.

Although it wasn’t all a joke. Grillby might not remember his past in too much detail, but he remembered the day Sans and Papyrus had arrived to Snowdin. Two hungry, dishevelled skeletons, too old to really count as children anymore, but still much too young to be on their own. And Grillby, not really knowing why, had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on the brothers. He’d helped out here and there, not that the two of them wanted much help. And after all these years, while Grillby never thought of himself as a father figure per se, maybe he could count himself as something of an uncle.

“It’s getting late anyway”, Grillby continued. And it was true: the shadows of the bar had grown thick.

That was another thing, now that Grillby thought about it. Sometimes the bar felt much darker that it ought to be. When the natural light behind the windows disappeared, it became more obvious. The shadows cut deep. They felt alive, even.

But that was silly, of course. Grillby probably was just blinded by looking at his hands, and his unadjusted eyes saw everything darker than it was. And of course his flickering flame would cast shadows that looked alive.

“i guess you’re right”, Sans sighed as he got up from his stool.

“put it on my tab. later, grillbz”, he waved as he walked through the door, the draft gently brushing Grillby’s cheek, and disappeared into the night. And with him gone, the shadows begin to look like ordinary shadows, dim and devoid of anything odd.

Grillby put the glass away, and began polishing another.

 

 

_He was lying on his back, the bed underneath him nice and soft, his pillow cushy. There was a weight on his body, tangled around his legs, heaviest on his chest._

_“Do you have to lay on top of me?” he asked quietly._

_“Mmmm. You’re warm…” came the answer._

_He was sleepy, oh so sleepy. They both were._

_“You’re a damn house cat”, Grillby murmured. The weight on top of him shuffled, as the other searched for a more comfortable position._

_“At least I’m your house cat.”_

_“My house cat…” Grillby sighed. “And I’m what, your hot stove?”_

_The other snorted._

_“We’ll work on that.” Grillby felt a hand trailing from his shoulder to the back of his neck, the touch feather-light and pleasant._

_“But you are hot alright…” The voice sounded nearer to Grillby’s face, and despite keeping his eyes closed, he knew the other was hovering right in front of him._

_He might have retorted something clever or not so clever, or chastised the other for using such an old joke. But before he could speak, a soft kiss was pressed on his mouth. Grillby leaned in to the kiss, raised his hands from his sides to embrace the other, to pull him closer-_

His hands only hit the air, his own movement startling him awake. He sat up on his bed, his flickering flame and the pale moonlight from his window the only things illuminating the room.

He was alone.

With every breath he took, every pulse of his rapidly fluttering Soul the dream was disappearing from his grasp. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, tried to hold on to the lingering touch on his neck, the weight on his chest, the taste of the kiss-

It all faded away, like sand slipping trough his fingers.

Soon all that remained was the frustration of not knowing what he had forgotten, it all on the tip of his tongue but just beyond reach.

Eventually Grillby lied back in bed. It was still hours until morning, much, much too early to get up. And perhaps if he fell asleep soon, he could catch the dream again.

 

 

On a whim, Grillby decided to walk through the park on his way home from the repair shop. It was another beautifully sunny day, and the park was bustling with life. There were children kicking a ball back and forth while their parents chatted by the side-lines, a group of students throwing a Frisbee, a rabbit and a dragon monster (both exceptionally buff) were getting nice cream together. A beautiful day indeed.

A small stream bubbled through a part of the park from a waterfall made of stone, streaming into a duck pond. Something sky-blue caught Grillby’s eye. He squatted by the edge of the water: the same little blue flowers grew here, too? There weren’t that many of them, just the occasional cluster, but something about them made Grillby happy anyway. He really should look up what they were called once he had the time.

“WHAT ARE WE?”

“We are g-great!”

“LOUDER, ALPHYS!”

Grillby didn’t have to turn to look to know who that was: Papyrus’s voice was as loud as it was recognizable. The skeleton was jogging towards him, with a sweaty Alphys in tow.

“We are GREAT!” Alphys shouted, out of breath. Grillby remembered Undyne saying something about Papyrus training Alphys, but shouting while jogging would not have been Grillby’s first strategy to better someone’s confidence. …It was a very _Papyrus_ way to approach the topic though.

Grillby smiled. He wasn’t as close with Papyrus as he was with Sans, but it was hard not to be fond of the tall skeleton. Sure, he was loud and odd and bombastic, but he clearly meant well, he was brave and caring, and there was just something heart-warming to his eccentricities.

“Hello”, Grillby greeted as the others jogged closer.

“HI GRILLBY!” Papyrus waived. Alphys raised her hand, but whatever she was going to say was lost to her wheezing.

The air felt heavy all of a sudden. Was there a thunderstorm coming? Grillby glanced to the sky. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen.

“C-can we- take a break- and say hi- to Grillby?” Alphys managed to say between gasping for air. She pulled out a water bottle and took a long swig.

“ALRIGHT, BUT ONLY SHORTLY!” Papyrus answered while jogging in place. Grillby had often wondered if Papyrus had gotten Sans’s energy on top of his own when the brothers were born. He must have, for one of them to be such a lazy bones and the other to be the complete opposite-

Was… was Papyrus’s shadow just a shade darker than it ought to be? Grillby blinked. Must be some trick of the light.

“WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO?”

“Home. I just got my radio back from the repair shop”, Grillby answered, showing the plastic bag in his hand.

“What was w-wrong with it?” Alphys asked, having regained her breath.

“It kept turning on and off and changing stations on it’s own” Grillby replied.

It had been strange, although not all that bothersome. More often than not when Grillby had been upset, the radio had switched itself on and begun playing something cheerful or soothing. And sometimes when it changed the channel, and Grillby turned it back, he soon came to the conclusion that what he had originally intended to listen to wasn’t as good as the radios choice. But sometimes the radio turned off while Grillby was listening to the news, and it had gotten annoying enough that he decided to get it repaired.

“But apparently there’s nothing to be fixed? The repair lady said that it looks on the inside like a normal radio, and it didn’t act on it’s own while it was in the shop. Weird, right?”

“OH, RADIOS JUST DO THAT SOMETIMES”, Papyrus said with a shrug. Grillby’s flame flickered with surprise and confusion. What?

“What?” asked Alphys, looking equally surprised and confused.

“OUR OLD RADIO DID THE SAME THING. IT HAD GOOD TASTE! BUT THEN SANS TRIED TO DO SCIENCE WITH IT. IT DIDN’T EXPLODE A LOT, BUT WE DECIDED IT WAS BEST NOT TO GET A NEW ONE. SO WE GOT THE TV INSTEAD!” Papyrus explained nonchalantly. “IT DID THE SAME THING SOMETIMES, BUT USUALLY JUST BECAUSE SANS ACCIDENTALLY SAT ON THE REMOTE.”

Papyrus stretched his arms up, adding to his already impressive height.

“BUT THAT’S ENOUGH REMINISCENCE! WE SAID HI TO GRILLBY, NOW IT’S TIME TO RESUME OUR TRAINING!” he declared. Alphys groaned quietly.

“BYE GRILLBY!” Papyrus said as he started jogging again.

“B-bye!” Alphys quickly ran after Papyrus.

Grillby waved goodbye to the two. The heaviness of the air had lifted as Papyrus and Alphys jogged away. He began walking back home: even if the feeling of an oncoming thunderstorm was gone, Grillby would rather not take his chances by staying outside longer than he had to.

 

 

”Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop,  
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,  
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,  
And down will come baby, cradle and all.”

_The corridor was dark, he had nothing but his own flame to light the way. The only sound around him was his own footsteps, and the song echoing from the room at the end of the hallway. The door ahead of him was closed, but a dim light shone under the doorway._

”Baby is drowsing, cosy and fair  
Father sits near in his rocking chair  
Forward and back, the cradle he swings  
Though baby sleeps, they hear what he sings.”

_The voice was strange with the way it sounded, it always had been, but there was something unexpected that happened when it was used to sing. All the intonations, the rhythms, the way words were pronounced: when singing, it all came together to flow as something eerily beautiful._

_Grillby opened the door and entered the room quietly. There was a figure, tall and thin and cloaked in a long black coat like he always was, kneeling on the floor in front of two cardboard boxes, his back towards Grillby. Bits of towel and blanket peaked over the edges of the boxes, odds and ends to cushion the makeshift cribs._

“Rock-a-bye baby, do not you fear  
Never mind, baby, father is near  
Wee little fingers, eyes are shut tight  
Now sound asleep - until morning light.”

_The other finally turned toward Grillby, but he couldn’t tell what he looked like. There was something covering the other’s face: it was white and blocky and_ wrong _, constantly glitching and shifting. But Grillby knew the other was smiling at him tiredly._

Quiet. They are sleeping _, the other signed. His palms were still wrapped in bandages._

_Grillby nodded. The other got up, and walked to Grillby, and through the door. He motioned Grillby to follow._

_Together they walked though the corridor, and entered one of the doors. The other flipped a light switch: it was the break room._

_“I brought food”, Grillby said as he lifted the paper bag in his hands. The others eyes went wide._

_“I love you so much.”_

_“Love you too. That’s why I brought food”, Grillby chuckled as he handed the bag over. The other sat by the table and unpacked the food: a burger, fries and a milkshake. He began to eat with large bites._

_Grillby sat down._

_“When are you taking them home?” he asked after a while. The other swallowed the last of his meal._

_“Soon, I think. I want to make sure there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary before I take them out of a controlled environment.”_

_“Well. They themselves are a bit out of the ordinary as is”, Grillby said with a smirk. The other snorted._

_“Indeed.” He started to pack the trash away: tossing the burger wrappers in the paper bag, crumpling the paper bag into the fry holder, and stuffing the fry holder in the milkshake cup, and finally sealing the package with the cup lid._

_“I’m just worried.”_

_Grillby nodded._

_“I guess this is too new to have books about it or anything.”_

_“It’s not that”, the other said quietly. “I know the way Souls work in and out. I have all the resources to take care of anything unexpected in their physiology.” He sighed, rolling the trash filled cup back and forth on the table._

_“It’s just… What if I can’t take care of them properly? What if I forget to feed them, or misplace them, or don’t pay enough attention to them, or hover by them constantly, or just mess them up somehow, or-”_

_“Stop.” Grillby interrupted. “None of that.”_

_He reached to take the others hands in his own, white bandages coarse against his fingers._

_“You are going to be an amazing father, alright? And I- okay, I don’t really know anything about parenting, but I’ll help.” He fanned his fire to a comforting warmth. “I’ll be there for you. Whenever you need me.”_

_“But Grillby-”_

_“No buts. You’ve been working hard all day, and you are tired, that’s why your head is spinning up these nightmare scenarios. You need rest.”_

_“But what if they need me-” came a weak protest._

_“I’ll look after them”, Grillby said firmly._

_The other nodded, hesitantly, and got up from the table._

_“I fed them just before putting them to sleep. They should be okay for a while…”_

_Grillby guided the other to the break room couch._

_“If anything happens that I can’t handle, I’ll wake you up”, Grillby promised. The other nodded again as he lied down on the couch, pulling a quilt over himself._

_“Thank you, Grillby. For everything”, he mumbled drowsily as he closed his eyes._

_“Always”, Grillby replied, and leaned down to press a quick kiss on the edge of the others forehead._

_He turned the light off as he left the room, leaving the other to sleep in the dark. He began to walk through the corridor, towards the room at the end of the hallway._

 

 

“Dum du-du dum-dum, dum du-du-dum…” Grillby hummed as he polished a glass. The slow, soothing melody had been stuck in his head since morning.

It was the last stretch of lunch hour, and Grillby was grateful for that. It brought good money, but he missed the ambiance of standing behind the bar, looking over his little domain, only popping in the kitchen shortly to cook something or other.

The door opened, and Frisk walked in with brisk pace, soon to be followed by Asgore. He might have exchanged his royal robes and pauldrons to a pink shirt with a flower pattern, but the former king of monsters was still a regal, towering figure. Who had to duck his head while entering Grillby’s so that his horns wouldn’t scratch the doorframe.

The two of them took seats at the bar, and Frisk waved at Grillby as he brought them the lunch menus. Grillby waved back.

“Howdy, Grillby!” Asgore greeted. After a beat of thought Grillby waved at him too. Asgore gave a deep chuckle.

“I can see you have redecorated”, Asgore said, pointing at the water glass with the little blue flowers. Grillby nodded. The blue flowers looked good in his bar, like a tiny spot of sky against the dark wood of the bar counter. So Grillby had gotten more when the previous ones had wilted.

“You know, Frisk”, Asgore began to talk to the human beside him, “Back when I was courting your mother, flowers were used to convey secret messages. You see, young people in high positions were very controlled in terms of socializing. You couldn’t just sneak a love letter to the one you were interested in. So flowers were assigned meanings, along with amounts and colours. For example, dark pink rose means gratitude, elderflower means compassion…”

Asgore gestured towards the small bouquet of flowers. “…And the forget-me-not means true love.”

Grillby listened as he polished a glass. What a nice concept, to send someone a message with flowers, he thought. A bit cheesy, maybe, but romantic in it’s own way.

The door opened and closed as Sans walked in, making a beeline to his usual spot.

“heya grillbz. one order of burg, please. hi asgore. hey kiddo”, he said, ruffling Frisk’s hair.

“I think a burger sounds good. Do you want one too, Frisk?” Asgore asked. Frisk nodded vigorously.

Grillby went to the kitchen and made the burgers. When he got back, Sans was in full swing.

“…well, it’s _goat_ to see you and tori getting along”, Sans said and took a swig from a ketchup bottle Grillby did not recall giving to him.

“How’s work been?” Grillby asked Sans before he bothered Asgore too much. Sans’s eye lights twinkled with excitement.

“it’ going pretty great, actually. there’s just this… remember when I explained how the machine was kinda like a net?”

“To fish stuff out from the space between spaces.” Grillby recited. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

“i think we’re really close now. just need to make a tighter net.”

It was nice to see Sans like this, psyched up about science.

“And then what? Space fish?” Grillby asked jokingly.

“you’ll see”, Sans said, a wide grin on his skull.

And just like that, the shadows of the bar felt deeper, darker. Heaviness filled the air, much like boding a thunderstorm, but in the best of ways. A soft breeze rustled the forget-me-nots on the bar counter. It smelled like bones, like ozone and chemicals.

Something was coming, Grillby could feel it. Something big, something important.

Grillby found himself looking forward to it.


End file.
